financial system was on the verge of a collapse comparable or worse than what was experienced during the great depression. >> yesterday a former senior fbi official testified before the

house foreign affairs committee on militant group al-shabaab and why he feels it could become more of a global threat if the united states won't counter its influence. al-shabaab is this tamale-based group that took credit for last week's attack at a canyon shopping mall. this is just over two hours. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

>> this hearing will come to order at this time. today we are going to meet to assess the threat and i would ask all members to take their seats at this time. today we are going to discuss the threat from al-shabaab which is al qaeda's franchise in the horn of africa. we are going to discuss the threat that it poses to somalia combat the threat to the horn of africa, to the region and the threat that it can -- poses to us. al-shabaab translates to the youth and that organization officially swore allegiance if you recall last year in february to al qaeda but the leadership for many years al-shabaab had

been working closely with osama bin laden and as a consequence the roots there are very deep. al-shabaab has been primarily focused in the past on attacking the young somali government because the focus on al-shabaab was establishment of a very extreme form of sharia in somalia. and they continued their attacks on african peacekeepers that came into that region. they were working to secure that country but this is changing. this is evolving and the dramatic attack on september 21 on the westgate shopping mall in nairobi kenya demonstrates al-shabaab's ability and demonstrates their desire to threaten civilians throughout east africa and in this plot you had 70 killed and you had over

200 injured. very common knowledge if you are going to attack a mall most of the adults in a mall over 70% are usually female and many of them are going to have children with them, so this planned attack obviously was focused on maximizing the psychological damage. several americans also were wounded there as you might now. this is not the first time that this group has carried out this type of deadly attack in the region. if you ever call the attack in uganda july 2010. there were a series of bombings against civilians watching the first world cup match in the paula uganda. 74 were killed there by al-shabaab. many more were injured including by the way of one american killed there. today we are joined by the fbi agent who led the bureau's investigation into that deadly

al-shabaab attack in uganda. last year about a quarter of al-shabaab's attacks took place in kenya so that is a significant increase. for al-shabaab these attacks are retribution for a neighboring countries contribution of troops to the u.n. authorized african union peacekeeping mission in somalia. this peacekeeping effort which has made great strides has been strongly backed by the united states by the african union and the european union. of considerable concern al-shabaab has demonstrated a unique ability to recruit young members of the somali diaz for community in europe and in the united states and convince them to travel to somalia, convince them to join the fight. u.s. africa command suggests that these foreign fighters in their words remain the greatest threat to western interests

regionally and internationally. one witness today called the united states a callback primary export of western fighters to the al qaeda affiliated group. indeed one of the first americans to become a suicide bomber carried out his attack in somalia. on line videos that are shown here in the united states and shown in the west end shown in britain promised potential recruits a glamorous new life and we will hear today about one effort in the somali american community to counter such propaganda and recruitment. needless to say we need to be on top of this al qaeda aligned groups reach into the u.s.. al qaeda leadership recently encouraged the sympathizers in the united states to carry out smaller but still deadly attacks as individuals or in teams of

two or three and such strikes on u.s. soil could be similar to the one al-shabaab launched. al qaeda elements have proven their ability to inspire and to train attackers and they have done is primarily over the internet as demonstrated by the boston marathon bombers of the ford good shooter. two years ago when dr. jones first appeared before this terrorism subcommittee that i chaired at the time to discuss the future of al qaeda, we discussed al-shabaab and at at that time the head of britain's and my five was warning that in his words it's only a matter of time before we see terrorism on our streets inspired by those who are today fighting alongside al-shabaab. that was the british view at the time. given our support for the african peacekeeping mission and the fact that the u.s. remains a

top al qaeda target we need to get ahead of al-shabaab's efforts to radicalize local youth. and we need to do that before that statement applies to streets in the west. so i will now turn to our ranking member mr. elliott engel from new york for his opening remarks. >> good morning mr. chairman and thank you for holding this hearing and welcome to our panelists. we are here today to discuss al-shabaab a somalian-based terrorist organization that continues to threaten the horn of africa. two weeks ago as you mentioned a group of heavily armed terrorists storm the westgate mall in nairobi kenya intent on killing the listen -- innocent civilians. al-shabaab claimed responsibility. after a four-day siege the attackers were finally overpowered but not before murdering at least 67 men women

and children. among them was the wife of u.s. foreign service national who was seven months pregnant. while attacks by al-shabaab in kenya are not native the westgate mall attack was particularly ruthless. it was the worst terrorist attack kenya has seen since the 1998 al qaeda bombing of of the u.s. embassy. it raises important questions for kenya the international community and members of congress as well that al-shabaab's size strength and intentions. for many years al-shabaab controlled most of somalia. it imposed a brutal form of sharia law. it's one illustration of the complete disregard for human life and al-shabaab gained access to large parts of the country during the devastating famine in 2011 leading to the deaths of thousands of somalians.

in late 2011 kenyan forces joined the african union mission to somalia and help to finally turn the tide against al-shabaab. they have had a number of successes against al-shabaab first by expelling that group from mogadishu and later a port that have provided significant source of revenue for the terrorist group. despite these successes it seems it has reached its physical limits of expansion in somalia. while al-shabaab is deprived of valuable territory continues to call military and civilian casualties inside somalia with new guerrilla tactics and now we have this brazen attack by the group in kenya's capitol. all of this must lead us to ask his al-shabaab as weak as we thought it was and you may expect more attacks of of the scale in kenya and possibly other countries?

have internal struggles and al-shabaab made the group more focused on global jihad today than in the past? i understand it is difficult to say anything definitive about an organization that shabbily as al-shabaab and given its latest attack i believe they must re-examine what we thought we knew about the organization. finally i would like to take moment to highlight the significance of the very large somali refugee population in kenya which represents another facet of this nomenclature. after decades of foreign instability in somalia it's not surprising that there are nearly between one and 2 million somalis living in kenya today. it will be tempting for the kenyan people and government to play in somalia for their insecurity and call for somali refugees to be sent home. i sincerely hope it does not come to this. kenya has long been one of the world's most generous host

countries. the fact that the refugee camp constitutes the second largest city in the entire country is evidence of this. i hope kenya will continue to provide a safe haven to those fleeing from violence hunger in constant fear. and mention this not only because of the humanitarian locations but also because it has a real bearing on al-shabaab's ability to grow its network, recruit an operating kenya. i think it will be valuable to hear from our panelists on what they think kenya can do with respect to its somali community that would help impair al-shabaab's operations and conversely what actions could make the terrorist threat even worse so i would like to thank the chairman once again for holding this hearing and i look forward to the testimony of our witnesses. i yield back mr. chair. >> thank thank you mr. engel. google go now to mr. chris smith of new jersey for one minute the

africa subcommittee chair. >> thank you very much mr. chairman. last week's after again i heard from christians who were survivors of firebombings and murderous campaign by boca program a sister type organizatorganizat ion to al-shabaab. we need to recognize more fully i believe the threat posed by these cowards these terrorists who are slaughtering people and as we all know the reason why the kenyans were targeted is because they deployed peacekeepers to try to bring some kind of peace and stability to somalia which has suffered for so long under the grip of al-shabaab. i would point out that there was a statement made by al-shabaab pointing out that they will intensify. we will strike canyons where it hurts, turn their cities into graveyards and rivers of blood

which they say will flow in nairobi. to its credit kenya has not turned and ran. kenya's president kenyatta has said we want not be intimidated. we will not be -- and he talked about keeping his peacekeepers on the ground to bring some semblance to the war-torn country. we need to stand in solidarity with the kenyans. 12 people were watching the world cup people were slaughtered by al-shabaab because uganda have deployed peacekeepers as well. we need to come forward to support this because this growing intolerance in this hatred is spreading through -- boca are from and al-shabaab have got to be defeated. >> i want to thank the chair and the ranking member for holding this hearing today. the crisis of the westgate mall

represents a serious security concern to east africa are partners and by extension our country. while al-shabaab has been handicapped for counterterrorism activities carried out by the african union mission in somalia with support from our military the offensive last month very cool reminder we can't lose focus on preventing and eliminating terrorist elements throughout the continent. i want to remind my colleagues that wealthier here to address al-shabaab there are similar concerns in west africa that require our attention. these groups are destabilizing factors on a continent that is becoming more peaceful and increasingly a target for economic investment. i also want to mention that on the news this morning i saw al-shabaab essentially has initiated another thread saying that they intend to go back into kenya and i really hope our witnesses have an opportunity to address this. see thank you. we will go now to the chairman

of the terrorism subcommittee for one minute. >> while the attack on the westgate mall in kenya was ongoing the terrorist group al-shabaab are sending out sweets. twitter knew about the al-shabaab account a year before the attack but later refused to take it down. unlike facebook and youtube that go after these terrorist sites twitter wants the fbi to tell them when to take down a particular site and apparently the fbi remained silent for various reasons. it's against u.s. losses for terrorists and twitter claims it doesn't allow terror sees a twitter account. twitter says it is the way of knowing if an account is run by a terrorist group were not for twitter has a rule you can't claim to have a false identity on twitter so either way twitter

should be taken down terrorist accounts for either the terrorist group is really operating in account or it's not an somebody's misrepresenting them. it's time for twitter to stop violating u.s. law giving terrorists a free way to release their propaganda and aid to the world. i look for some matches today. thank you mr. chairman. >> thank you mr. poe. this morning we are joined by a distinguished panel to address this issue. we have dr. seth jones back associate director of of the land corporation's international security defense policy center. dr. john specializes in counterinsurgency and counterterrorism with a particular focus on al qaeda. we also have mr. dan borelli chief operating officer of the soufan group a 20 year veteran of the the fbi of former special agent in charge of the joint terrorism task force in new york mr. borelli's work at the fbi include investigations and research related to al-shabaab including leading the investigation of al-shabaab's 2010 world cup bombing.

mr. mohamed farah is the executive director of ka joog which means stay away a somali american youth organization working to counter the negative influences of groups like al-shabaab in somali communities in the united states. mr. farah has been on the frontlines of this community radicalization efforts him was given the fbi directors director's community leadership award in 2012. richard downie is the deputy director of the africa program at at the center first you teach and international studies. mr. downie analyzes emerging political economic social and security trends in africa with a particular focus on sources of instability in the subcontinent. without objection the witnesses fault. statements will be made for the record and members have five days to submit statements and

questions and any extraneous material they want to put in for the record and we will ask all of our witnesses to summarize their testimony to five minutes if you would. dr. jones will begin with you. >> thank you very much chairman royce ranking member angle and members of the committee. thank you for inviting me and us in general to testify at this hearing al-shabaab how great a threat. those of you who just spoke noted the al-shabaab attack at westgate mall and its follow-up attacks because it conducted attacks later in and around the kenya somalia border are a stark reminder that the somali-based group and al qaeda affiliate remains lethal. despite some losses in mogadishu as the somali capitol and the which is to go help for the group the group does present in my view a significant terrorism

threat in the region including to the united states embassies and citizens in east africa conquer the horn and potentially other areas. at the moment it is my judgment that al-shabaab does not appear to be plotting attacks against the u.s. homeland. certainly not to the degree that an organization like al qaeda and the arabian peninsula in yemen that there are several reasons in my view why america should be concerned about al-shabal-shab aab and recent developments. first as we saw in the westgate attack attack al-shabaab does have a competent external operations capability. the westgate mall attack was well-planned, well executed involved impressive intelligence collection surveillance recognizance of the target. it had operatives prepared to ask a range of questions to individuals before killing them

or letting them go inside the mall. the these skills could be used to attack the united states and its interests in that region. second al-shabaab officials have expressed an interest in targeting u.s. and other foreign targets in east africa. they have also planned to kidnap americans and other foreigners in the region. they have plotted attacks against malls and supermarkets embassies and obviously the u.s. embassy was struck in 1998 by al qaeda in the same country. third, and perhaps most concerning americans from cities like phoenix and minneapolis for the past several years have traveled to somalia to fight with al-shabaab. we have had a number of suicide bombers boston seattle washington san diego columbus lewiston maine --

may not have seen individuals recruited or left for somalia. the fbi and law enforcement have done an effective job over the past several years working up a number these individuals. the ability to reach out to these individuals sue for yourself -- social media raises a concern. based on counterterrorism efforts against al qaeda more broadly since the establishment in 1988 i would suggest the u.s. consider several steps to help we can al-shabaab in this region including more broadly in the united states. in the region the first is implementing but i would call light footprint strategy that focuses on covert clandestine special operations forces. i covered al-shabaab somewhat when i was then u.s. special operations and diplomatic efforts to work with the somali

government and its neighbors. a good case i think of working with the somali government and its neighbors such as kenya and ethiopia in their efforts to counter al-shabaab and its financial logistics and other networks in the region and in somalia itself. this means just to be clear about this in my view the united states should not -- certainly not deploy a potential u.s. forces to somalia. again i think it's a good case of working with the somali government and local governments in the region to take the lead in this effort. the u.s. role should be what i would call a light footprint and i'd be happy to spend more time talking about that. the second issue and one that i think we have not done a particularly good job is to aggressively undermine al-shabaab and al qaeda more broadly extremist ideology. al-shabaab has struggled over the somali government and

establish an extreme version of sharia is just as much an ideological as a military struggle. the u.s. over the past two decades has done things like disbanded the u.s. information agency. in my view we have a very disjointed information campaign among multiple agencies. i think what we saw really one of the most effective efforts against the soviet union and and the cold war among others by ronald reagan was a substantially increased and covert effort to combat the ideology. which is closed a statement from al qaeda. almond al-zawahiri quote i say there have been on more than half of the battle is a battle in the media and the race for the hearts and minds of our amount. in conclusion members of the committee i would like to highlight al qaeda realizes this ideological -- >> thank you. let's go now to mr. borelli.

>> mr. chairman distinguished members of this committee thank you for the opportunity to speak before you on such an important topic. as mentioned i'm a 25 year veteran of the fbi. my last position was assistant special agent in charge of the task force in new york. in a position i was responsible for fbi internatiinternati onal terrorism matters including those involving africa and they let the team of more than 60 fbi agents in uganda july 2010 to investigate the simultaneous suicide bombing attacks during the world cup soccer game conducted by al-shabaab. i have first-hand experience dealing with the atrocities committed by this terrorist group. since leaving the fbi and the soufan group i have helped oversee encountering violent extremism research including a recent study in counting the narratives of violent extremism.

kenya and uganda focusing on al-shabaab i personally interviewed policymakpolicymak ers community leader security officials and young people in the crosshairs of al-shabaab and that is what i would have to focus on today is al-shabaab sure krugman effort particularly involving western youth. it's important to note that al-shabaab their political agendas divided into different factions than nationals a champ which aims against foreign troops and the global jihad agenda aligned with al qaeda and focusing its efforts against the west and its allies. this division of ideals within al-shabaab is reflected in al-shabaab's recruiting efforts. the narrative of the nationalist agenda uses reports of violence in somalia along with compelling combination of propaganda that appeal to a sense of obligation to defend somalia from foreign invaders. the global agenda is aligned with broader al qaeda message

framing that the west is at war with islam. after speaking with many members of the somali american community in minnesota we found the narrative that resonates the lettuce was somali youth whose overwhelmingly political as opposed to religious and focus on the nationalist agenda driven by eight nationals concerned for the future of somali however just because a young person might be enticed to join al-shabaab to defend his somali homeland doesn't mean he isn't a threat to the u.s.. our fear is that while somalis here in the u.s. may travel to somali with the nationalist agenda to defend somali they could be converted into following the global agenda, the al qaeda agenda and returned to the u.s. to launch attacks here. we are seeing this pattern with other communities. the ford attack against the new york subways system in 2009 illustrates this threat.

now she bullis ozzie and afghan travel to his homeland with the idea of fighting there was co-opted by al qaeda and convinced he could do more good by taking the fight back to the u.s.. what therefore committed to mitigate this threat and counter al-shabaab sure printing tactics here in the u.s. and abroad exit and abroad? or strategies of them will see faceted. we need to continue the pressure pressure on us about pressure on else about to military law enforcement intelligence and economic resources. we need to expand our efforts in promoting education and critical thinking among would-be recruits for terrorist groups. as we have seen in minnesota many who join al-shabaab to help their somali homeland need to understand that al-shabaab is not helping their homeland. whether it's committing atrocities against its own people potentially vulnerable recruits need need to see how they are being manipulated by al-shabaab. they understand that al-shabaab would turn their attention to health somalia to a global terrorist agenda that aims to export violence and kill innocent people. how can we do this?

when you do understand extremists use local grievances as initial motivators at the local level and we need to be very strategic in the medium the message and messenger we use. our focus should be on helping credible voices in the community countered the message of violent jihad offered by al-shabaab al qaeda and the like. and the internet needs to be an integral part of the strategy. if we have recently seen in al-shabaab was bragging on twitter about the attack in the west gate mall. we need to be just as effective using the internet if not more so. lastly viewing it as only a local or regional threat. in the early 1990s many smart people ignored al qaeda because it was seen as a group only focused on the middle east and

central asia. we have seen how a terrorist organization gone unchecked can morph into a global threat. we must not let that happen with al-shabaab. i look forward to expanding on these points and i look forward to the question and answer. math. >> thank you mr. borelli. ..

who had few things in common, such as education, art, positive role models in the community, and proud citizens of a country with limitless opportunity for those who are willing to work hard. the term cajoled means to stay away or stay out, and the message behind that is to get youth away from negative influences that hinders their success or reaching their best potential. we are all wondering the same thing in this room this morning. how is it that american youth can succumb to radical recruitment. sure, any of us today sitting here would not dream of strapping explosives on, let alone even fight alongside extremists for whatever overly glorified cause. but why? because we have been all

educated, well-educated to understand that our human potential is worth far more than an explosive vest, and that our human purpose transcends the murders you agenda of extremists. the number one issue of our community is recruit. of our youths and as americans we must be sure the attempts made be al-shabab are acts of desperation. religious scholars denounce their claim to legitimacy. the veil slowly has been lifting to reveal the true agenda and political intent of this group. we should no longer be the victim of their terror, we shall not generalize by the actions of few individuals who have tainted

the name of the somali people across this great nation. al-shabab has taken every possible measure in full capacity to blow the ideology with an appealing message to our youth. they targeted the disenfran cheesed, marginalis i and estranged youth to messages infused with religious righteousness. the young men are no longer with us today. and thus we will be the same fate of so many more youth unless we act swiftly. why is that we spent millions of dollars on counterterrorism and still american citizens are disappearing and fighting alongside al-shabab. in conclusion, i would like to thank you for the time to address this concern. i would like to finish by saying that this is an uphill battle that we must call on the corporation of all agencies, communities, and organizations

to share a vested interest -- who share a vested interest in the safety of our youth and who wish to seize the effort of extremist entitieses we most empower local partners to be more adequately equipped to deter youth from becoming a rad exactlyized. ka joog lack the vital resources. ka joog and the rest of our community lack the vital resources to safeguard our children, and most importantly, to safeguard our freedom here in the united states of america. ka joog and the community has been fighting since 2007, and i urge you to -- this committee and our federal government, my government, to stand with us, to fight al-shabab, and take this and eliminate this cancerous ideology and take this fight to somalia. >> thank you. thank you, mr. farah very much.

we'll go down to mr. downie. >> chairman, and distinguished members of the commitee. thank you for the opportunity to testify on the threat posed by al-shabab. i will make in brief remarks about the evolution of this terrorist group, its current capabilities and objectives, and offer some thoughts how its threat can best be dealt with by the united states and allies in east africa. al-shabab is a fragmented group, representing different interests and objectives. it began as the armed wing of a broader israelist movement which briefly governed parts of somalia before it was toppled by troops from eat open ya in 2006. it presented itself as nationalist movement protecting sew mall liz. pragmatists were quick to spot business opportunities as the group took over more territory. many of the foot soldiers tagged along in the hope of a meal or were coerced to join. but there has always been a

fraction within al-shabab that has harbored grander amibitions of waging international jihad. this has been strengthening its ties with al qaeda. the westgate group reflects the ascendancy. it was to avenge the invasion of southern somalia launched two years ago to push back chronic instability from the two countries shared boater. al-shabab had a similar motive in 2010. uganda is the largest contributor to african union's peacekeeps force in somalia. the targeting of the westgate, packed with families from around the world, show that al-shabab wishes to mak a larger statement, to the countries in the region and the allies which pouter them. there are key points to bear in mind about the attack. first, we should be weary of using west greatto draw broader conclusions about the risk posed by al-shabab to the u.s. home

happen. the threat level is not is inly changed by events in nairobi. the most alarms aspects of westgate is al-shabab from its perspective has scored a big hit with relative ease. it realized all it needs is a soft target, planning, plenty of ammunition and determined attackers willing to die for their cause. we should expect repeated attempts. the west gate continues the operational shift of al-shabab towards an international agenda that aligns with al qaeda. so it's more likely to look for targets beyonds its borders and seek opportunities to team up with like-minded groups in the region. there are suggestions the westgate attacks may have been carried out with the help of a kenya-based group. the complexion of the attack changes significantly. we know there is a small number

of u.s. citizens have supported al-shabab in the past,. that has flowed toward somalia. there is little intense to attack the u.s. homeland but vigilance is required. building trust in the somali community in the united states would be critical part of the prevention strategy. however, more immediate threat is not to the u.s. homelands built in interests of the united states in east africa, which irsubstantial. i have some brief suggestions for the united states and its partners to consider. first, the u.s. should stephens efforts to help kenya strengthen its ability to prevent and respond to terrorist attacks. improving intelligence capacities is critical. so, too is the need to improve communication and coordination among its security agencies. instilling a security consciousness among the kenyan public is key way to bridge the intelligence gap.

the challenge is the high levels of distrust in the police. cannot be relied upon to act on information from the public. the u.s. should seek to build 'momentum to professionalize the police, turn them into an organization that people respect rather than fear or deride. as the kenyans authority seek to neutralize the effect of al-shabab, the assistance of sew mamlies will be critical. the united states should urge the kenyan authorities to reach out to these communities and avoid heavy-hasn't actions that might alienate them, such as threatening to expel refugees. ultimately the dedealing with al-shabab will be found in somalia. therefore, removing the threat of al-shabab means isolating and relentlessly pursuing the most extreme wing responsible for the westgate attack. force the majority of ab al-shabab members, it may be

possible to rehabilitate them through a combination of threats and inducements. they may even be persuaded to abandon violence and join the political process. more broadly, policy responses must be formulated to tackle the conditions of insecurity, economic hardship, and poor governance which allowed extremism to take hold. united states is an important funder of the somali federal government. it should use this influence to press for inclusive governance, improved security and delivery of public services. i thank you for your attention and welcome your questions. >> we thank you, mr. downie. let me ask a question of mr. farah first and that has to go to the question of young somali americans that al-shabab attachments to -- attempts to recruit. are there particular types of young men for which they have a

greater incident of success? what's the target? >> al-shabab is targeting the disenfranchised youth. that's their tactics, and that is the game that we need to -- that we're playing here. we need to be able -- the youth in the community -- there's a lot of underlining issues, radicalization doesn't happen overnight. it's a process. and so what we need to do is really try to engage the disenfranchised youth missing, whether it is jobs, whether it is lack of mentorship, those are the youth that al-shabab is targeting, and that is the core issue here. that's what we need to target. >> i just finished ed hussein's book, the islamist. it's a very interesting perspective on this issue. let me ask you about how you

would assess the u.s. government's antiradicallization efforts, andrile ask mr. borelli the same question. >> my assess in regards to what our government is doing and terms of al-shabab, we're very good at the external work in terms of military, going after terrorist across the world. but what we need to do is within the community, our federal government must invest local entities like ka joog, to do more engagement, more work, what shows does what happened over a week ago shows me and shows us in the community that we need to do more work. so, what i would suggest is that our federal government must invest local entities and must empower local entities to do more work within the community and across the nation.

>> thank you, mr. farah. mr. bore'llly your thoughts. >> number one, i do agree with mr. farah and that the federal government northeasts -- government needs to invest at the local level. the recruitment efforts are hatched at the local level, start with local grievances, and the best way to stop that message to counter that message, is by credible voices in the community. i'm not sure at-that the federal government has really a good strategic plan yet for doing that in terms of cve. we have seen that many different agencies within the federal government have a role in the cve, in countering this violent message, and some cases seems to be a bit disjointed and disconnected. we have seen a lot of the responsibility has been put on the backs of law enforcement, fbi, homeland security, and sometimes that may not be the

best messenger to be working on cvu when, on one hand, you're trying to bridge this gap and build this trust, and develop a dialogue on monday, and then on thursday your counterparts from your same agency are in the community making arrests, putting sting operations together. so you have sometimes opposing forces that have different agendas but within the same agency. so, i think this is something that we also should be looking at closely. >> thank you, mr. borelli. dr. jones, in past hearings, we have learned of various networks, some of them affiliated with al-shabab, involved in smuggling somalis into the united states, and i was going to ask you if this is still happening, and for what purpose would al-shabab smuggle people into the united states?

>> mr. chairman, my understanding is the pace of smuggling and actually individuals leaving the united states has likely decreased somewhat over the past probably two years. but i think there is an interest in recruitment and fundraising in the united states within the somali community, the somali-american community. the primary reasons for bringing people are in to recruit to go back to somalia and to fundraise and ensure there is money that is going into the pockets of some cash-strapped members of al-shabab. >> in the past how were people brought into the u.s., make access into the -- >> one of the primary routes was through the u.s.-mexican border, through the southern route. if somebody has a legitimate passport and name does not come up, you can fly in.

other than that, a primary route is through crossings of the u.s.-mexican border. >> mr. ingle from new york. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to refer back to a question i mentioned in my opening statement, and anyone who would like to abc this is welcome to. could you discuss the relationship between the kenyan security forces and the somali population and provide analysis of what kind of engagement could be effective in combating al-shabab. mr. downie? >> the relationship between the kenyan security forces and somalis has not been good, both inside somalia and kenya. inside somalia, where kenyan forces invaded southern part of

the country two years ago, there were growing suspicions that kenya is not purely interested in pushing insecurity away from its border but pursuing political and to some extent business interests in southern somalia. and that's clearly creating resentsment within somalia. meanwhile, inside kenya, the tendency, when we have attacks like this, for the kenyan security forces to lash out, interest indiscriminately, targeting members of the somali-kenyan community in nairobi, and this is, as we heard, large somali refugee community. these are incredibly counterproductive measures because these are the two communities that the kenyans have to rely most closely on nor getting information about these sorts of attacks. >> many observers have suggested that the attack at westgate was

a desperate attempt to bolster recruiting and provoke an overreaction against the somali community in kenya. do you agree, and what sort of policy responses for be avoided in order to avoid this scenario? >> ranking member engel, probably multiple motivations for conducting the attack. i suspect, as we have seen with other organizations, not just al-shabab, overreaction would be welcomed by al-shabab. it would encourage recruitment. i suspect there were other reasons. the -- a desire to exact revenge on kenyan forces, which have conducted lethal operations against shabab training camps within somalia, and also to get attention.

they got 24/7 attention from multiple international media sites. so i think there were multiple reasons for doing that. i think from a -- after overreaction standpoint, we have to be careful not to encourage the kenyans to overreact, conduct overt attacks within somalia that are likely to walk into the same issues that several of our witnesses have talked about, walk us into a nationalist problem, which encourages recruitment within somalia. >> if i may add one thing, mr. engel, is that i think the westgate attack was very shrewd for recruiting, at i mentioned before, you have various factions within al-shabab, more of the nationalists faction and the global jihad mentality. this attack seemed to appeal to both. you were able to launch an attack against kenya, and

against the country that has boots on the ground of your country to it appeals to the nationalist movement, and also by targeting westerners and all of the media, the global media that was given to this attack, it has the broader appeal of the al qaeda-like faction. so, i think in that sense, it was very shrewd and could be a good recruiting tool. >> i might just add one thing. clearly this was an i attempt to get attention with the mother organization, with al qaeda. there's been -- we've seen in the past, at least osama bin laden was dubious about al-shabab's seriousness as an organization, even so they were too indiscriminate in their attacks and that they were killing too many muslims. there's been a conscious effort, at least in the way that al-shabab is presented this attack, they tried to single out christians and i think we

shouldn't actually be taken in by this p.r. from al-shabab. the single largest loss of life the attack was at the beginning when a grenade was lobbed into a group of people, mothers and children watching a cooking demonstration. this is a completely indiscriminate attack. >> since you mention al qaeda, let me get one last quick question in. what this relationship, the nature of the relationship, between al qaeda and al-shabab? al-shabab we know in 2012 announced a formal merger with al qaeda. what does that mean? do they take directions from al qaeda? get training, operational or financial support? >> frankly, it's hard to know. certainly the two groups have been moving closer together, particularly since the new leader of al-shabab. he has been trying consciously to reach out and appeal to al qaeda. whether this attack involved substantial support,

coordination with al qaeda funding or even received the blessing from al qaeda, i certainly am not aware of that. >> thank you. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you very much. we now go to ileana ros-lehtinen. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. this horrible al-shabab attack, coupled with the closure of over 20 u.s. embassies and consulates this past summer, and last month's targeted suicide bombings against christians in pakistan by an al qaeda, linked group, proves that terrorist groups are extremely active still, and their influences are far reaching, and the threats to our u.s. national security interests from extremist groups such as al-shabab remain very real. the united states must not let

down our guard. these groups, as you pointed out, are attempting to strengthen their ties to communities here in the united states and that must be of grave concern to all of us because it will spread their propaganda to recruit youths to join their ranks, and as you pointed out in your testimony, these youths recruited by al-shabab are more driven by nationalistic and political ideologies rather than religious ones, but can easily be converted to global al qaeda agenda, and if we know that al-shabab and al qaeda have been successful in recruiting these susceptible youths what more can we do to target those communities in an effort to counter this influence? also, with we're going to fight terrorism and their activities, we have to develop a comprehensive strategy that can

disrupt their networks, prevent their operations from spreading, and one entity that can be of assistance to us is the u.s.-africa command, but what we have seen is that this combatant command continues to lack the necessary assets, infrastructure, personnel, and resources to effectively fight terrorism successfully, and another key aspect to dismantling al-shabab's activities is through the drug trade. we have known that the threat of narcoterrorrism continues to grow. used by many terrorist organizations to finance their activities and expand their network. last year a dea official testified that, quote, millions of dollars a year or being sent to somalia and other countries in the horn of africa, some of which ends up in the coffers of terrorist organizations such as

al-shabab. end quote. so we need to fight this extremism head on. we have to reassess our priorities, continue to use initiatives that are doing a fairly good work, but could be beefed up. the east africa counterterrorism initiative, the transsahara, and they could do more to protect national security interests and dismantle terrorist cells but these programs lack prioritization, lack clear objectives, realistic benchmarks of what they can do to look at our progress in fighting these extremists, and in your assessment would you say the united states has been given the threat of al qaeda, the attention and focus that we should? do we need to re-evaluate the extent of these threats and our policies and programs in place to fight them?

so u.s. communities and reassisting the threats, anyone who wishes to take any of these. >> thank you, congresswoman. i took your point about stopping the threat and trying to target the threat against these young people in the communities, i think we do need to continue to evaluate our programs, both locally and federally, and at martha a -- mr. farah pointed out, some very good work is being done in the community and we need to continue to support that. as an example, when i was in minnesota visiting the local community and entire many of the young somali people there, they had actually put together a youtube video showing the atrocities committed by al-shabab and showing how al-shabab was manipulating

people with a distorted message, and these are the kind of programs that we can put forth to support using the internet, using the same social media that is recruiting these people, using it for the counter-narrative. >> thank you. anyone else wish to comment? >> yep. if i may ad to -- add to whale what my colleague said, we definitely need re-assess on moving forward in records to the threats of al-shabab. in the recent attacks, shows us is that we -- that al-shabab is not weak as we think. we need to do more and more work within the community, and we have to understand that 99.99% of our community are law-abiding citizens. we're talking about a few individuals but those few individual are the ones we need to target, that we need to go after and those other ones we need to engage -- >> thank you. thank you, sir. i've just run out of time.

thank you. >> mr. series of new jersey. >> thank you for holding this meeting. is a listen to you, what is the main source of revenue of al-shabab? where do they get the money? through drugs, through -- >> my understanding is they have redundant sources of funding from illegal criminal activity, including involvement of the charcoal network to kidnapping, to multiple other sources, including taxation in southern somalia. so, redundant sources of funding, as well as funding from population of somalis across the globe including from the u.s. >> i assume we keep track, especially in the u.s. 0, people who are contributing to these people. somehow.

>> yes, and some have been arrest ford that. >> we have made arrests. >> yes, we have. the thing is, it's very difficult to track the money opposite it gets to somalia. there are many people in the sew mall -- somali community that send money to their families. the problem is once the money gets there, it's hard to track if it's actually going to feed relatives or being diverted to go to al-shabab. this is the challenge for law enforcement because, quite frankly, some of those people need the money and it's sent there with good intent but it's diverted. >> i might just add, this is a very live issue right now because of the difficulties of monitoring the money transfers of much of this money. a lot of banks are getting leery of doing business with these firms. the problem is, it's certainly true, it's hard to monitor the flows, but by cracking down on money transfers you're also stopping vital source office income for sew mall liz and just

at the moment where the countries starting to rebuild its economy to some extent, cut offering the flows can have a disastrous effect in the development prospects to somalia. >> nra a how does the muslim community in kenya and somalia view shabab. >> 99.99% of the somali diaspora across the world condemn the work of al-shabab. this is something that al-shabab do not convey my image. they do not convey the image of the somali communities across the united states, nor across the globe. >> so i guess one way of tracking the money would be the community that sends the money, making sure that the money goes to the relatives that it's intend to. >> definitely. that's where we have to take

things back to somalia and really empower the federal government and the regional government to really put laws that -- a system that we can oversee, where money is flowing. >> are the agencies in this country working with you on some of these issues in. >> definitely, yep. everybody in the community is onboard in terms of where al-shabab standard the community, and it doesn't stand anywhere. it's condemned throughout -- across the community. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you. we're going to go now chris something i. >> to our distinguishes witnesses, in 1998, assistant secretary of state carpenter sat where you sat and said that the u.s. embassies in nairobi were, quote, soft targets and of course we have now had a decade-long -- several years-long, multiyear effort to

harden those targets. no matter what we do, anybody in the world, never be a hardening of supermarkets, restaurants and the like, which underscores the need to destroy these hideous terrorist organizations because they pick, through guerrilla action, where they want to destroy people and destroy physical infrastructure. if you could tell us -- dr. jones, you said that unfortunately u.s. evidences to get al-shabab and al-qaeda have been, quote, disjointed. mr. downie you said that current efforts by leading international banks to stop doing business with money transfer companies through which some of this funding is believed to flow are understandable but your words are misguided. and i'm wondering, when al-shabab was placed as foreterrorrist organization in march of 2008, obviously one of the mainstays of the law is to go after the financial transactions that keep them

afloat and aide and abet their killing. how effective has the designation been? how would you assess the weaknesses and strength of the u.s. response? and you can go into fur the elaboration. and while your answering, mr. downie, you mentioned that ahmed is in control of the movement and is in ascendancy. if you elaborate what that pore tends, and finally, if i could, met with sheikh mohammed, the president of somalia. how do you assess his work, his capable? he is drying with u.s. support to build up a military capability, hopefully with the strong emphasis on human rights. if you could speak to that as well. >> thank you. to talk about the last couple of questions there, the importance

of gadani as the leader. it is significant. he is on the very, very edge and end of this extremism, has been, since his rise to the top of the organization, the app al-shabab has tried to orientate itself more closely with al qaeda. he is very much motivated by the international jihadist agenda, and he has been absolutely ruthless when it al-shabab. it's a fragmented organization and in the last few months he seems to, through assassinations and disappearance of potential rivals, some of who disagreed with his methods, has consolidated his power and sort of strengthened the ties of al qaeda. so that that significant in the group's choice of targets in

terms of the new president of somalia president mohammed, been in office for a year now. given the challenges that somalia faces, more than 20 years without a functioning government, he is doing okay. modest progress. in his favor he is a serious person. he is not tainted by the politics of the past. he has come from outside of politics. he is trying his best. he has a technocratic government around him. but the challenges are immense, and one of them is the one he highlights and that's security, the efforts to strengthen the security of somalia. >> still working? is the u.s. government doing it can do? >> i think one of the weak spots is the one you highlighted, the financing piece. there are no very easy solutions to that. by clamping down on on the remit yapses, you're holding back the

economic progress in somalia as well. it's a blunt tool. >> when i look around the globe, there are some al qaeda affiliates which have clearly strickennenned, their control of territory has grown. shabab has decreased so the efforts of the u.s. and the sew mall guy government has done has decreased the territory and pit on the run. it's not dead and the lesson we learned over the past couple of weeks, if we take our foot off the gas the group has the capability to strike. so, i would -- we hope we come back to the ideological issue here because i would say that's the biggest weakness right now in this fto designation, they're still recruiting. >> thank you. >> we'll go now to mr. investigate a of american samoa. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i am curious, wanting to ask

mr. fa farah, how come 88,000 somalias live in minnesota? do you have snow in somalia? i'm curious. >> not that i'm aware of. i don't think there's snowing in somalia. however, there's a lot of reasons why somalis move to minnesota and same reason that i have -- that i did. really minnesota is very good to -- when it comes to raising the family. the economy is much better compared to other states, and in the somali community it's all by -- everything goes by referrals. so if a family calls another family and says, minnesota is where you need to be, that's where the bus is going, that's where they'll be moving, and so that's where a lot of it -- that's why you see a large concentration of somalis in minnesota. >> i'm also aware of the fact

that i think quite a sizable number of people, among people from vietnam, also live in minnesota and i was curious. maybe mr. borelli could help me. there is any particular reason? economics? job -- seems that minnesota is giving our country a good example for immigrant to come to because they seem to be offering a lot better programs than other states. is that the reason why so many of our sew -- somalian americans live in minnesota? >> based on my discussions with people in that community that's the case. it's very easy for people from other countries to go. they can get some programs that help them get on their feet, get established, and then it just becomes a very hospitable place for people from other countries to make it in the united states.

>> when we had the oklahoma city bombing, there was an immediate profiling by federal agencies as well as state enforcement officers, in oklahoma. anybody with an arabic surname was questioned because the presumption being that -- the stereo typing, the profiling, to say that this terrorist act must bev been done by a muslim terrorist. turned out to be an american, and i'm just curious, dr. jones and mr. borelli, have there been any incidents that somali american community have been profiled since this incident took place in nairobi, where serious questions have arisen about the loyalty of our somalian american community? an event of this terrorist attack that took place in nairobi?

dr. jones? >> i'm not a aware of any but i don't live in minneapolis, so i defer to my colleagues. >> thanks for the question. since the incident happened in kenya, there's been a lot of media throughout the community, really scrutinizing the image of the somalis, and really, again what we need to reiterate again over and over is that the majority of the community are law-abiding citizens. we're talking about few individuals and those few individuals do not convey the message or the image of the somalis. >> it seems to me -- correct me if i'm wrong -- our experts -- i believe there's only several hundred al qaeda in afghanistan but we have al-shabab with 5,000 members? aim correct? there's 5,000 members that make up the al-shabab organization? dr. jones? >> that number sounds a little

high now for fulltime members but the number of al-shabab are larger than the numbers of al qaeda in afghanistan. >> mr. borelli. >> i believe dr. jones is right. and if i could kind of make a point on your other statement. i think we have learned lessons over the course of the years in law enforcement that don't jump to conclusions too quickly. we need to not look at the person's last name or where they're from. we need to look at their actions and keep a very open mind because recruitment and radicalism and the opportunity to join a terrorist group and commit acts of violence transcends a person's place of birth or their religion. >> i appreciate that. thank you, mr. chairman. >> mr. willbalker of california is recognized. >> just to note, i did extensive

investigations on the oklahoma city bombing, and i still belief at that time there was a muslim connection to that, and it's all the way from terry nicholls being down in the city at the same time ramsey yousive was before the oklahoma city bombing would indicate that, but that's never been proven. radicals, whether they're anglos or muslim, seem to have the same enemies and that's decent people throughout the world, and especially the united states of america, which is trying to ally ourselves with the good and decent people of the world. let me just note that -- talking about thousands of people and a terrorist organization, thousands of people. this is not an operation that can be financed through

contributions from individuals who sympathize. that's -- the cost of -- what is the cost of a bullet in somalia? >> i would say the cost of a bullet is probably around 10 to 25 crepts cents a bullet, not to mention the cost of an rpg or the cost of explosives or the coast of vehicles or the cost of training, or the cost of recruiting. these are enormous costs. these are things that cannot be done by -- one of the problems we have here, madam chairman in the united states, is our law enforcement is trying to find out somebody who has donated $100, some cab driver somewhere, to this terrorist network somewhere in the world. now, we need to get down to the nitty-gritty and find out who is providing the hundreds of

millions of dollars to the terrorist operations throughout the world. and who is spending the money to recruit these young people? who is providing that money? and for some reason, i just have an inclining there are people in the middle east who make a lot of money from oil. i don't know what countries they are. i just have that inclining. and i would sergeant we could be able to prove that if we wanted to. but we have been keeping that information from the united states as to who is pumping in tens of millions of dollars into the terrorist operations. am i offbase when i think that? mr. jones? gentlemen? >> i think there's a lot of gray in how much and from where al-shabab gets all of its funding. i would say it does got large. as of funding from other locations in addition to the middle east, kidnapping actually

has -- can be quite profitable, as can illegal trafficking in a range of goods, including the charcoals' smuggling, this is in the hundreds of thousands and when you add it to kidnapping, in the millions of dollars. >> have to put it in a bank? someone has to have that -- those resources that you're talking about into a central location and then distributed. so there's banks involved in this in some way. is that correct? >> that is likely. again, i'm not a treasury expert so would did he ever to those deer did he ever to those who follow the banking. >> awful i can suggest here, madam chairman, what i'm suggesting today, we have been law enforcement -- i like mr. borelli talking about how we have to get down to the actual psychological and recruitment of people in these communities, but we have ignored the big guys. you want to get to the source and the bottom and cut them off

from people -- from recruiting people, but we have been going after the little guys. we have been going after these people -- individually, when we have some very big players in international terrorism who, for some reason, we have not been willing to touch, whether they're big banks or somebody in saudi arabia who has a billion dollars someplace and is pumping in ten to $20 million a year into these things. we are ignoring them. i would hope that our government, after this horrible massacre, in kenya, decides to focus on the big guys who are really financing all of this mayhem around the world. thank you very much, madam chairman. >> i would be happy to yield. >> if i could, has the indictment of kenyatta by the international criminal court in any way frustrated the u.s. ability to work side-by-side with the kenyans?

he stated he will not be intimidated. he does have a large number of peacekeepers deployed in somalia. >> thank you, mr. smith. that's a wonderful question and we hope we get the opportunity to answer it at some point. and now we will turn to miss gabbard for me question and answer. >> thank you for sharing your insights here today. a couple of questions first for mr. fa're with regards to the work that ka joog is doing. i if you could give a couple of examples on the outreach you're doing in the community as well as your suggestions, both with the nongovernmental or nonprofit organizations within the somali community can do as well as law enforcement in a pro-active way to prevent recruiting efforts, and secondly to if you could speak how the somali american community views these recruiting efforts and what actions within the community as well as externally they're taking to

denounce these efforts. >> thank you for the question. in terms of ka joog, our mission is to really empower the youth to really stay away from all negativity, whether it's al-shabab or gangs. we have to treat al-shabab like a gang. that's exactly what they are. we do -- a lot of art and education go hand in hand in everything we do, in terms of art. we're talking about spoken word in place. we use the arts to engage the youth, but ultimately education, education is the key. tutoring and mentoring is the core of what we do, and recently we created really the first ever somali boy scouts. that's something we haven't seen recently. again, we're trying to integrate the youth to the greatest society as best fits. a lot of great work in the community that is being done

before us. what we need to do is invest in those programs, and that is what is missing here. aside from what we're doing externally in the united states, we indiana to focus on -- we need to focus on what is going on in the community and empower local entities. ka joog is an all-volunteer based organization. how can we fight al-shabab when they have millioned of dollars and you have entities like ka joog and others in the community who are trying to -- who are running on e, and our federal government is mia, missing in action. in terms of a somali community, they feel the same way across the board when it comes to al-shabab. we condemn the work of al-shabab, and those individuals, few have individuas don't convey the message for the somali community. >> thank you. to the rest of the panel, i don't know if you're able to

estimate what percentage of the financing for al-shabab is coming from the u.s. or coming from these re mittances you're talking about, and secondly, if those recruits that shark back is getting from the u.s., is it your understanding that their intend is to engage in fighting abroad or here? based on the conversations i have had speaking with people in minnesota, their intention is to fight abroad. but as is mentioned, special he now with the consolidation of power, and this more of a global jihad message, the fear is that they can be turned to come back and take the fight here in the ewes. with regard to your question about financing, i don't have a number. maybe one of my colleagues has in terms of total remittances.

>> the subject matter is just so murky, given the way that money is transferred and the lack of transparency within that system. one thing i should say, and that's to follow up on dr. jones' remarks earlier, that a key source of financing for al-shabab until recently, has been from within somalia itself, taxation of populations in shark back controlled areas, from controlling previously the largest port in the south of the country. so if there's a silver lining from this, now al-shabab is being pushed back from some of the territory it controls and its funding is being squeezed as well. >> thank you. i yield back. >> thank you. and now we're honored to recognize mr. mccaul, the chairman of the homeland security commitee. >> thank you, madam chair. i want to echo the gentleman from california's remarks, mr. rohrabacker, about the funding issue. got briefed yesterday, as i do

on the threats, and the majority of these threats when you look at these organizations and you look at the funding streams, the majority of them tie back to the saudi peninsula, in terms of funding, and this is the inconvenient truth that no one talks and no one wants to deal with, either. there's an article today that says $100,000 sent from gulf to fund 25 assassins to the elite intelligence unit of the sol mali terrorist organizational shabab. this is something, madam chair, we have to deal with at some point in time, and i know it's been something that the saudis being our ally, presents a problem. and it's a challenge but it's something we need to address, and see it for what it really is. i do want to -- i am concerned about the threats to the homeland with respect to these americans. 50 -- we have a hearing on homeland security committee in 2011, up to 50 of these

al-shabab members are from the united states. i think there are more than that. 50 that we know about. so, i think the first question is to mr. borelli, with your expertise with the fbi, what degree of confidence do we have on the identity of this americans in term0s who are they? can we get them on the no-fly list? are they on the no-fully list? what is the threat to the homeland with respect them returning after being trained and recruited in the war on terror. >> i think what -- with regard to your firstey in terms of being able to positively identify these individuals, get them on the proper watch lists and so forth, a lot of progress has been made. i've been outside of the fbi for three years now so i can't speak

to the gap from then to today, but when i did leave the fbi, we had fairly high degree of confidence, nothing is 100%. again, this is where we need to engage the community to help us, help the fbi, identify these people, to know when they leave the community, when they go off the grid, and confirm the fact they have joined the ranks of al-shabab. secondly i would say to your other point, the risk to the homeland, i would say is definitely there. i don't know if it's higher today than it was a month ago but, again, my fear is the type of situation where somebody leaves with the intend to fight abroad, and they're coopted to take the night back home and these individual if they have a blue passport they can get into society, and reinteresting

separate and that's a serious problem. >> within al-shabab we know there's a rift between the americans from alabama, mr. mr. hamami, and the current leader, gadani, and the risk is a understand it is between whether they want to focus their interests regionally or whether they want to expand that. you talked about external operations beyond the region, to western targets and possibly the united states. mr. hamami was assassinated by gadani and his disciples, a week before this shopping mall attack. the shopping mall is a symbol of western -- sort of a western target. so you put all that together and that's very confusing, and disturbing as well. dr. jones, what do you make of this rift within al-shabab, and the assassination of hamami and were americans that under

hamamis control in any way, responsible and complicit with this attack on a western symbol, the westgate shopping mall? >> can't speak to the degree of involvement by americans. i mean, my understanding that is still being look at by our own agencies to some degree. but what i would say is i would strongly note your point about the notable risks in the organization, and there has been encouragement to conduct attacks outside of just somalia. and, three, i would also note that what the u.s. does can influence it, not just za but fassad was involved in an attachmented attack in the times square. they were safessed be the u.s. intelligent community not to be a threat to the homeland. we as nateed the year before the head of that organization with a drone strike if we took

those kind of actions in somalia my guess i they would be right back after us. so our actions also can impact where this goes forward. >> i see my time has expired. thank you. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. vargas of california is recognized. >> thank you very minute. i want to focus a little bit on the united states and obviously i read here on page 4 that al-shabab demonstrated a remarkable able to recruit somali americans since 2007. the center of the evident has been in minnesota. i represent the area of san diego, and we also have a fairly large somali population. there was a during during theth neck cleansing cleanse kosovo md i adopted a muslim family and they lived with us for two years, and during those two years i got to meet many in the somali community who had been airlifted to california. now, i have not heard of any

recruitment in san diego. for al-shabab or any other terrorist organization. could you comment on that? >> i would say the fear is that the internet does not know the boundaries between san diego and minnesota, and we have seen that al-shabab is very effective in using the internet. many of these young people get the message from the internet, so while there may know about boots 0 on the ground and that type of recruiting, i think the fear is that you absolutely have recruiting in san diego via the internet. >> then my followup question, i think i heard it earlier, the notion that maybe somali terrorists were coming across the mexico-california -- or mexico-texas border. border from mexico and the united states. do we have any evidence at all of that? >> yes, in particular the movement of individuals from the united states south across the

border. some have returned. i'm not aware of many that have returned that have been prepared to conduct attacks... the border seems to become the excuse saying that the terrorists are coming across the border and i have a very good relationship with the border patrol that we met here last weekend they have not not apprehended any terrorists coming across the san diego tijuana border.

it seems that most of the terrorists do agree that their number of them obviously. we have caught people and we have find people who have seemed to come here legally and an airlift some humanitarian effort on the part of united states and they have permits to be here. is that correct? >> yes, that's a vast majority but again i would also point out that some americans including somali americans have left to fight and al-shabaab through that border as well so it's not just the returning. >> so is the exiting united states and is not the entering united states? >> i don't know the percentage that have entered via that way. >> we have any evidence of anyone who is center that why? >> i can't speak to that. >> you have any information of any name or person who has been arrested in the united states? >> i can check and get back to on that. >> would the please because i would like to know that. it's usually used as an excuse that the border is so porous and it seems to be mostly landscapers and it seems most of

the people who become terrorists or those who arrive in this country through some sort of visa where we threw our generosity as a nation take a look at some horrible event that has happened around the world and we allow people to come here on a humanitarhumanitar ian basis and unfortunately and scandalously they become terrorist sympathizers. i think we should go after them and show them no mercy really. when the united states stretches out its hand for friendship as we have historically we should not tolerate any sort of terrorist activity or terrorist sympathizers. again i just want to make the point and we hear it over and over all these terrorists coming from mexico or the southern border into the united states. we don't seem to have information on that. we have lots of information of terrorists who come from other parts legally into the country and become radicalized and go and fight somewhere else and they blame it on my hometown.

there is no evidence of that. >> we will get back to you on that. >> thank you very much. thank you mr. chair. >> thank you. we go now to mr. ted poe of texas. >> thank you mr. chairman. i have three questions gentlemen. the first one how does al-shabaab use twitter and what do you understand twitters policy if any torrid al-shabaab? dr. jones? >> my understanding is that they have used surrogates to send out messages on twitter but i cannot speak to twitters policies on using, on monitoring or targeting al-shabaab on twitter. i would also say much like a number of militant groups including once affiliated with al qaeda they have become active on multiple social media forums including in this twitter case

to get information out as a propaganda tool. >> is does anyone else want to weigh in on that? >> al-shabaab attracts a lot of young people who are media savvy and they use their skills and familiarity with social media to great effect posting videos and it's a powerful recruitment tool. i think we need to respond to that. it was very interesting -- the excuse me and let me interrupt you would deal him by we need to respond? >> we need to be smart in how we use information. to give you one example as the west gate attack was unfolding al-shabaab were churning out messages going to the kenyan authorities on twitter feeds. the kenyans were trying to respond through their own social media but were really a step

behind the whole time and flat-footed. it costs a lot of confusion and as governments need to be smarter about how to respond to this thread. >> what the long-term goals objectives or policies of al-shabaab? just open it up for anybody who wants to weigh in on that. i will just start picking folks if no one wants to weigh in. >> as i mentioned in my testimony al-shabaab is a very broad organization. clearly the center wing is now that is committed to global jihad. it increasingly looks beyond the borders of somalia to launch attacks primarily within the east africa region targeting specifically those countries that have troops for peacekeeping troops in somalia. of course they are on the lookout for soft targets that

represent western interests so that is why i think the west gate mall was for their purposes a perfect target. >> so their goals are to cause chaos worldwide jihad murder pillage? >> it has evolved throughout time. they started out as a nationalist armed wing of posing the ethiopian invasion at that time. they went through a process lends let's ethiopian troops left holding substantial amounts of territory in somalia and tried with disastrous consequences to govern territory. eventually they were forced back largely from other african peacekeeping troops and now they seem to have pulled back and they're pursuing this jihadist agenda so when i hear the al-shabaab is weak now that

might be true. they have narrowed down their agenda but paradoxically perhaps that makes the more dangerous. they have channeled their objectives to narrower goals and that is the jihadist terrorist attack agenda i think. >> in africa do we see al-shabaab and other al qaeda affiliates growing in influence? is their influence about the same? or is it diminishing its al qaeda influence diminishing in africa? increasing the same? dr. jones icu pushing the button. >> i would say across-the-board in africa would include north africa as well as the horn. i would say there is a slight increase in influence of al qaeda and broader salafi jihadist movements in countries

like libya countries like egypt now and several other locations. somali as i said earlier again it does appear over the past two years that al-shabaab controls the territory has decreased but if you are asking about africa more broadly it would say there has been a slight growth. >> anyone else? >> i would say the influence ebbs and flows. across time there has been a slight growth particularly in the states just south of the sahara specific way in mali where an al qaeda affiliate took control of part of that country for a short time but are subsequently been pushed back largely through military intervention by france with some support from others. another area of concern is northern nigeria with boko haram and movements launching attacks and killing multiple people in

that part of nigeria. primarily the motives seem to be domestic by nature so i would not say that they necessarily pose a threat to the u.s. homeland for example. >> thank you three thank you mr. chairman. >> we go now to lois frankel. >> thank you mr. chair. thank you to the panel for being here. i think i share with americans what happened at the west gate mall in nairobi was just horrible and i know our hearts go out to the victims and their families. we see cnn and other media outlets have turned to other stories obviously. what i would like to ask you to to do and this has a very basic question which is if you could

lay out in as clear a manner as possible why the public -- american americans should be concerned about what happened? what is the potential threat from al-shabaab not only in the region but beyond the reach in here that needs our attention given what is happening internally in the united states? >> i'll take the first crack at that. the biggest reason we should be concerned as americans is looking back at history and what happened with al qaeda that we viewed originally al qaeda is being not a threat to america as a regional problem focusing its efforts on the middle east and central asia. we learned the lesson of how a terrorist organization can morph and change and become our number

one enemy. in my opinion that is the biggest concern that we have with al-shabaab is that it can morph and change into more of a global threat than it is now. >> if i can add to that. we should be very concerned about al-shabaab because it's not just a regional issue. i think their biggest goal is really to do us harm here in the united states. if they are capable of doing that. their main goal is really to attract disadvantaged youth and to really brainwash them and that is where we need to comment and stop that before that happens. that really should be our main concern is doing more work internally within the united states and treat al-shabaab as we are treating al qaeda. >> very briefly one, al-shabaab has the capability to conduct

external operations outside of somalia. two they have an interest in targeting the united states its embassies, its citizens kidnapping as well as killing and three, they have been recruiting in american communities including over the internet so if you put all three of those together guess there should be concerned. >> i would just add finally we talked about the potential threat to the u.s. homeland today but they are important substantial u.s. interest in east africa and kenya important allies of the united states. the largest u.s. embassy in africa and it's the hub for development important development programs that cover the whole region. many big u.s. firms have reached offices and kenya so irrespective of al-shabaab's intent capabilities on the u.s. homeland they certainly have improved their ability to attack

neighboring countries in somalia and that by necessity involves u.s. interests. >> thank you dr. perrelli. did you want to add anything to that? >> no, i think all of my colleagues summed up the situation very accurately. >> thank you very much in mr. chair i waive my time. >> thank you. we go now to jeff duncan from south carolina. >> thank you mr. chairman and let me just remind the folks that al-shabaab has been around for quite a while. a merger in february 2012 with al qaeda so they are not just a franchise. they're actually part of the whole structure now so in past hearings mr. chairman we have learned of various network some of them affiliated with al-shabaab involved in smuggling somalis into the united states through mexico. dr. jones is this still happening and for what purpose

do you think al-shabaab smuggle people into the united states? >> my understanding is it is happening. i cannot give you specific numbers on how many may be smuggled right now but i think your question on the purpose there may be several purposes, people wanting to return home and people intent on recruiting or fund-raising. i think those are the primary reasons. >> anyone else like to comment on that on the panel? besides the 2010 attack in kampala al-shabaab is focused most of its attention on somalia. this attack in kenya fits exactly the attack that also is very laid out and for al qaeda globally. as the west gate attack refute the claim that al-shabaab is on the retreat dr. jones?

>> i think one assesses the confidence of terrorist organizations like al-shabaab in several ways. one would look at their control of the territory which they have lost but what they have demonstrated is they have lost ground in that issue is important because one of their goals is to attempt to overthrow the somali government. they are successful in that part of their strategy they have not been picked torreo sat recently. what i think they have shown and what this does demonstrate is even though they have lost some ground they still have an attack capability and i think if you look at the history of al qaeda the strength and weaknesses of its affiliates and the organization itself have ebbed and flowed in a series of ways. even with the collapse of al-shabaab into southern parts of somalia again they are dangerous organization. >> you think that capacity extends beyond the african

continent and do you think al-shabaab has the capacity to carry out this type of attack or a mumbai-style attack somewhere else in the world? >> i think it's certainly feasible. based on the fact that they have begin conduct did an external operation outside of somalia, they have done the collection analysis recognizance of the target and moved people and fighters into place what they would need any specific country save united states or europe or somewhere else is they need the people in place in the infrastructure in place to do that. if they have been interest they could do it. >> you think the counterintelligence focus being so singularly almost focused on al qaeda as a whole do you think we have taken our eye off the smaller subgroups like shabaab or are there other subgroups that might be planning similar attacks that we need to focus on as well?

>> i think an important chunk of our intelligence community recognizes the threat from shabaab. i can't characterize whether they have, and i would say in response to the fbi among other organizations have been effective in penetrating in the united states. i do think we recognize the threat. recently whether we have laid off a little bit that's a more interesting question. that is certainly plausible. >> can i just add, i don't think we have taken her eye off of al-shabaab it should be aware of potential other groups in the wider region and what seems an alarming element of the westgate attack is that al-shabaab may have fostered links with the kenya-based group called al he dura which emerge from it extremist in nairobi and may

have had involvement with this attack and investigations are ongoing. we always need to be alert for the emergence of new groups and particularly their attempts to make contact with other broader terrorist groups in the region. tanza near is another country where there's a small but growing problem with islamic extremism and parts of that country as well. >> thank you. my time has about expired. i yield back. >> thank you. we go to mr. brad sherman from california. >> thank you. america provides advice to other countries on the rule of law and good government and we are now in a situation where many of us are embarrassed on the part of the federal government and its congress. this shutdown, what effect has that had on our image particularly east africa as a country and a model to follow and our capacity to train, to

gather information to do the development projects in the hearts and minds? i realize this is a bit away from the questions you may have prepared for but does anyone have an answer to how the shutdown has affected our efforts in east africa that? dr. jones? >> mr. chairman i don't know what the perception is in east africa. i would say my biggest concern the longer this grows or at lease one concern is their ability to continue to monitor this threat from intelligence agencies if we have people that have been furloughed. >> there are an awful lot of folks at the state department that happen to know that being furloughed right now. trips to africa have been canceled in the last 10 minutes and this is no way to run a superpower. dr. jones does al-shabaab have important assets, strategic assets that are amenable to

destruction by the kenyan british or american airpower? >> they do have some. the kenyans have used fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters to target the al-shabaab camps, structures that they have established such as headquarters so yes they do have some facilities that could be targeted. >> is the kenya air force up to doing that which can be done or is there a lot that can be done by an american airpower and british airpower that cannot be done by the kenyan air force? >> i'm not an expert on the kenyan air force. i'm not an expert on the ethiopian air force but i would say that they have been successful in helping the somali government pushback's shabaab from several key areas. >> mr. farah i am sure that the

vast majority of americans are law-abiding and only a tiny fringe is involved in lawbreaking to help al-shabaab but my question to you is does al-shabaab have significant legal support? that is to say people in the community rooting for them praising them condemning the efforts of the ethiopian and kenyan military's and are there web sites based here in the united states that condemn kenya's actions in somalia? >> i can assure you that the great majority of the community is on the same page when it comes to al-shabaab. nobody goes out there and starts you know gets excited when they hear al-shabaab on the news or when they hear attacks by

al-shabaab. everybody in the community feels the same way as i do which is condemning. >> what about those web sites? are they pro-shabaab or anti-kenya web sites in the somali web sites based here in united states? >> i'm not aware of any web sites. >> the kenyan government is painting a picture of 10 to 15 attackers one with the british and three with american citizenship. what is your best estimate to anyone on the panel as to how many attackers there were and how many of them had passports either from united states or a visa waiver country which of course includes britain? >> we had have very little to go on right now. the kenyan authorities have been slow to provide information about the attack. we still don't know some of the very basics, how many attackers

and how many escaped where hostages are taken. lee is very little to go on other than now a fake twitter account from al-shabaab which gave a list of names of people. >> and we don't think that is even al-shabaab? >> al-shabaab has said this wasn't them. >> does al-shabaab have substantial support among the somalis who lived in east africa but outside the quarters of somalia? that is to say egypt djibouti etc.? >> there are some sources of support from outside somalia particularly in kenya. the main somali district within nairobi. the kenyans have raised concern about the enormous refugee camp within the kenyan border where 500,000 people -- steve at the second largest city

so the second largest city in kenya and the district in the largest city of kenya got only contained somalians but there is substantial support within those areas for al-shabaab? >> i wouldn't say substantial. the kenyan authorities would say so but the kenyan authorities are concerned about this kenyan refugee camp. they have been hosting it for 20 years so it is perhaps in their interest to talk up the threat. >> the gentleman from california. >> thank you for mr. chair. because of recent events and when you asked this question. an indication they could have access to kimmitt weapons from any source? >> i am not aware of any. >> in europe pena and it would be a major game-changer if they could develop something like that in terms of spreading -- i quite frankly expected something a long time ago. >> nothing that i'm aware of and again i would point to other

rooms where we have seen efforts including syria with a chemical program right now but sarin but not here. >> i'm worried about sarah and some of the other things and maybe some of their allies that might not happen now but in the future get access to that. the weapons that we used in the attack primarily small-arms ak-47's? rpg's and the mortars or rockets or anything that could elevate the stage or no indication of that yet? >> there is no indication right now from what we have learned and the information is still patchy. it was small-arms and grenades. [inaudible] antiaircraft capability to the best of your knowledge?

it goes back to the other question. i know i'm throwing out of lot of questions but i don't usually get to ask so many questions so i'm going to make the most of it. it kind of looks like there is always a major event. obviously talking about the attack in conjunction with it. the world cup and the big mall. has anyone looked at so cheap? i know it's the winter games versus the summer games in that area. i don't think the somalia and over the kenyan bobsled team is going to be a target. but you look at the proximity to north ossetia and the caucasus and connections with other terrorist groups. it's five months if my math is

right or six months coming up and we haven't heard much about it. i'm sure they will have top security but have you looked at that in terms of or heard of anything at all? >> by encircling not heard anything. i certainly would say that al-shabaab is a plethora of easier targets ahead and westgate was evidence of that. >> okay. the mall of america is not a target because of its location in minnesota but my question was do they have a presence in canada? which has different rules. i'm talking about al-shabaab getting in and out of the country or have you noticed any? i always look at a map. all right i last question, is

there any presence of al-shabaab in djibouti or yemen in terms of arms dealing? >> i would say in answer to that but there is in there has been a relationship between al-shabaab and al qaeda in the arabian peninsula in qap based in yemen. they have conducted some training and they have shared tactics techniques and procedures. they are both al qaeda affiliates. that is the biggest link in the gulf area. >> nothing in qatar? >> other than funding i am not aware. >> they have gotten funding from qatar? >> they have gotten funding from the gulf. i can't give you definitive answers from which gulf countries other than a think it's certainly possible. >> okay. thank you.

>> thank you mr. cook and we are pleased to recognize dr. yoho from florida for his questions. >> thank you madam chairman gentleman i appreciate you being here. mr. borelli you said that movement is politically motivated and not religious? don't they go hand-in-hand? >> they do go hand-in-hand but in the conversations we had the idea of this war against the west this islamic notion did not come up in our come for stations. it was primarily couched in a way that the youth were concerned that there were foreign troops on the ground in somalia and they felt it was their duty to go back to somalia to defend their homeland. it wasn't like a crusade war in the west against islam. >> thank you end up jones again i agree with my colleague.

and it doesn't take many people to come in here to cause and wreak havoc in this country. it's like a cake mix. one drop of kerosene can read the cake. that isn't an issue of hours but it's imperative that we secure the border and would be with re-with that for that reason there? >> absolutely. one of the things that came out of bin laden documents in 2011 was an interest in getting someone with a mexican visa. >> it's like a cancer that metastasizes and it doesn't take a lot. i want to direct these questions to you. why do most of the somali immigrants come to america or a lot of them? >> a lot of them come to america for a lot of reasons. obviously somalia was in a state of civil war back then. education, job developments.

the american dream. those are a few options. >> it's a wonderful thing isn't it? freedom. >> freedom is a major -- >> i agree. are they majority of somalis in america practitioners of the muslim faith? >> yes. >> to most somalis adhere to the belief in the sharia law or american law or is it a combination? >> i mean the majority of the somali people across this nation go by the laws that we have here in our land. >> let me ask you this. how does -- in minnesota which is my home state. i was born there and proud to be from there. how well are the somali immigrants assimilating into america and most importantly

their loyalty to the united states of america and? >> let me say this. the somali community is best when minnesota are very loyal to this great nation. in terms of the assimilation to some extent they have been assimilated to the greater society however we do need to do a lot more work and there is a lot more ahead of us especially the youth. there are a lot of issues especially identity with a new generation. somalis and somali americans and that is what we are doing in terms of our work is really making sure -- they are not going back to somali. this is their home. >> i commend your work you are doing with ka joog. was the average age of the average somali? >> the majority of the community is between five to 24. >> what is their graduation rate? >> the graduation rate is very

low and that is what i was talking about earlier. there are a lot of underlying issues such as the lack of education and lack of jobs. >> why is their lack of education and? they are assimilating into our country. >> to some extent we do need to do more work. in terms of if you look gender wise females are doing great work. they are graduating far more than their counterparts. in terms of the males it's a lack of mentorship and that is where we come in. the high school rate is very low when it comes to boys so that is where we need to do -- >> let me ask you something before i run out of time. what is the employment rate with the somali male? >> based on the research i was recently reading just within one of the main communities, one of the main neighborhneighborh oods it was only 17%. >> up the unemployment rate.

>> that's the unemployment rate. that is way higher than the average in the state. >> madam chairman i am out of time but i have some more questions. >> thank you.or yoho and i'm pleased to recognize dr. weber for his questions. >> thank you madam chair. mr. jones no kin to end the ipers and? in your comments you said that you doubted that al-shabaab had confident external operations capabilities? >> can you repeat that one more time? i argued earlier that they do have external operations capability. >> okay well i must have missed that. i thought you said you didn't think they could export i took from that you didn't think they could export their horrific deeds to the united states. you are saying indeed they can. >> what i noted in the testimony

is that the mall attack does demonstrate an ability to conduct operations outside of somalia. what i haven't seen much is evidence of an interest in exporting those capabilities to the united states. >> okay so they have a recruitment system that they use where they actively recruit people in person and they do it on social media. could you hazard a guess? is it 50/50 percentagewise or is it 10/90 on social media? >> i would say it's probably quite large on social media. i cannot give you a percentage though. >> mr. borelli you said there was -- i have seen the figure. there are 7000 to 9000 fighters and i've heard five elson as i came back in from getting coffee. 7000 to 9000 fighters still an accurate estimate of?

>> i don't believe i was the one that commented on the number fighters. >> anybody? >> it's virtually impossible to know. i've seen various figures but this is an amorphous organization and people drift in and out and the wind the way she be concerned about is the jihadist wing that would be much smaller than that i would imagine. >> also a question for you. my son is in the end he had by the way so we appreciate your service. who monitors the historical scheduled if you will? terrorism is on the rise of theirs got to be a list a chart or call it whatever you want to the countries conquered the incidents who is involved in a number of deaths. who monitors that? >> you multiple agencies monitor

that within the intelligeintellige nce community. certainly fbi headquarters keep statistics on the number of terrorist groups and the number of estimated fighters and the different attacks that they have been responsible for but also cia and dod multiple agencies keep statistics on this. >> there is a ranking of the most credible threats to the least credible of, is there not? >> there is my belief that comes under the authority of the dni. >> who monitors that is a group? it tends to move up that rank. who gets that red flag? >> i will defer to my colleagues that it is constantly reassessed on a yearly basis for the intelligence community looks at all the fact tours and capabilities and they are constantly being reassessed for the priority and the amount of

resources that must be directed at those groups. >> dr. jones would be like to weigh in on that? i'm sorry? >> i don't have anything further to add. >> mr. downie? is that information shared with other agencies and i don't need just you -- i do mean u.s. agencies but i also mean internationally. >> i can't comment on how much is shared internationally. with two exceptions. one is the immense obviously in particular in the four and five communities are shared with the british the canadians the australians in new zealand. i would also point out when i served in government there were regular national intelligence estimates on the threat to the homeland that were combined by the national intelligence council so included the assessments of all agencies. >> i was the vice chair of the

texas border commission in the texas legislature and steve crawled the director of eps said if i remember there were numbers correctly there were sects of eastern religions coming across our border. mr. borelli do you have any knowledge of that? >> i don't have any knowledge of that. >> dr. jones? >> i can't confirm that. we have a lot. >> the gentleman's time has expired. thank you mr. weber. we thank her witnesses for their time in their excellent testimony. this is obviously a serious threat that we are going to stay on top of and the committee will continue to monitor the situation and with that, the hearing is adjourned. thank you gentlemen. [inaudible conversations]

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the supreme court blogs scotus is the only blog that went -- last month cofounders of the blog and veteran supreme court reporters discuss the roberts court and was ahead in the upcoming supreme court term that starts monday. this is about an hour and 20 minutes. >> okay. welcome back to what is our third and final panel today in this terrific and very well-deserved program in honor of scotusblog. my name is sonja west and i'm

associate professor of law. it will be my honor to moderator panel today which will be the most law heavy of the panels we have seen today and we have heard some great information this morning about scotusblog and its groundbreaking work covering the united states supreme court about what it means to cover an institution like the court in this digital age and today we are going to -- this afternoon we are going to move on to focus on the institution they have been covering the supreme court. i did want to share one personal anecdote about what scotusblog has meant to me as someone who follows the court very closely. coincidentally this summer june 26 does it have been my 5-year-old daughter was scheduled to have her tonsils out. for those of you who follow know that june 26 happened to be the day that windsor in. the two same-sex marriage cases have come down to the court. my daughter was wheeled back

from surgery at 9:59. i was put in this terrible sophie's choice type position of caring for my daughter and refreshinrefreshin g scotusblog and following scotusblog over and over again which i'm sure the nurses had no idea what it is doing. to get in a timely way and the hospital rooms and bedrooms and academic settings so i am grateful for the work you are doing. we are here today as i said and so honored and lucky to have with us on this panel four of our country's most prestigious and keen observers of the united states supreme court. we felt we couldn't let them -- without spending time picking their brains about the roberts court. most of us in this room who take

an interest in the supreme court would probably vividly remember the scene of chief justice william rehnquist funeral in 2005. it was a moment of intense significance. chief justice rehnquist was one of the longest-serving justices of 33 years and chief justice is 19 years of chief justice and in one of those influential chief justices of the history of the institution. his impact was without question. his dad brought to end an 11 year. matt during which the same nine justices serve together. that was the second longest consistent roster of justices since 1823 and what was also striking about that moment to many of us was a pall bearer of former clerk named john roberts and the nominee to be the new chief justice so it was a shakespeareanesque moment and

the symbolism was lost on a few of us. later this month the roberts court will market its eighth birthday and in that time the supreme court has gone through a number of changes. it has three new associate justices and the chain changes are showing no signs of being over soon. for the current members of the quarter over the age of 75 highlighting that we are in a stage of transition in the court. it seemed like a great time to take a look at the roberts court as it ends to hit its stride and there are few more knowledgeable sources on our panel today who have been watching the court from the front rows of the press box and at times he advocates podium. we wanted to begin by asking them to tell us what we should be paying attention to about the roberts court. what it is that is noteworthy, what is striking them as interesting the potential

differences between its predecessor of the rehnquist court. i know many of you have been following all morning but i did want to take a quick moment to give a quick introduction to who our panelists are. next to me we have tom goldstein the publisher and co-founder of scotusblog and advocate of 30 cases between -- before the supreme court. next to him we have amy howe co-founder and editor of scotusblog and involving council in many cases before the court. pete williams covers the justice department and the court and at the end we have tony mauro who has been covering the united states supreme court since 1979 and most recently for the national love journal. i will give them each a few moments as i said to tell us what they think is interesting about the roberts court.

i will follow probably with a few questions and we will definitely be looking for questions from the audience. i will start with time. >> thank you also much for coming. this is obviously a topic that is great to talk about for everybody and it will be wonderful to have your questions and thoughts. if we are talking about the arc of the roberts court i will make a short-term and longer-term play. one is in terms of cases to watch this term i'm sure we will talk about a bunch of them but i'm focused on the set of cases that show show how its true the major constitutional debates in america never and and the roberts court and to some extent the rehnquist court before it were a reaction to the era of the warren aaron to some extent the early burger years where conservatives particularly in the reagan justice department thought that the supreme court had gone off the rails to the left. on a whole array of issues whether to raise abortion religion, for the past 30 years

or so conservatives have been trying to fight back against the set of jurisprudence that they want to overrule. we have seen that done successfully by the court's conservatives trying to put in place of course correction affirmative-action federal power access to courts the 2nd amendment property rights. lots of things and that's not to say the conservative view is right or wrong but these debates do happen and there are a couple of areas in the law that are up in front of the supreme court this term that completes the agenda of the roberts court. we have the possibility of an abortion case coming back to the supreme court which has been referred to the oklahoma supreme court and they have abortion protesters as well. the conservatives on the court have been interested and protect them free choice but including the rights of abortion protesters. that is one of the most significant areas that is fraud

in american law that the roberts court hasn't tackled. that's abortion i do think in the coming years including this term we may see them tackle it. the second is religion. the court has not for the past five years issued a lot in the way of religion decisions and this term they have a legislative case. if you put this term inside the continuum over what is happening last eight years in the rehnquist court before those are the subjects that interest me. in terms of the bigger picture i think american constitutional law in 10 years won't look anything like it does now on these big questions. i don't know but will look more materially liberal or more conservative at the point about the demographics of the court that there are so many justices who have set before 75 or older. you cannot expect ruth ginsburg

from the list or justice kennedy and justice scalia will be on the court in eight years. what that means is for a long time both justice kennedy and justice o'connor have formed a kind of moderate conservative core of the supreme court that prevented it from swinging particularly far to what extent are the other. justice kennedy is gone. whoever wins the presidential election i think has the real possibility to tilt the court significantly to the left if justice kennedy and justice scalia replaced in the left has made moat bonus that they will overrule the suave the last 25 years of debate the other direction or if justice ginsburg were a ginsburg were replaced by a republican president the eliminating agent that justice kennedy would be on into law that moves materially more to the right. >> going into the same-sex marriage argument particularly

when david filed the case the ban on same-sex marriage lots of people have been staunchly opposed to their filing the case. they felt because boys made no bones about the fact that they wanted to end up in u.s. supreme court and get a frontal -- fundamental right to same-sex marriage declared. a lot of people worried that was too much too soon and it could go badly for the supporters of same-sex marriage and they could get a decision that would set the cause back decades. the point that the public opinion changed quite a bit and the people who had been concerned about a lawsuit were excited and were thinking the court would declare a right to same-sex marriage. justice kennedy a couple of weeks before oral arguments on the same-sex marriage case gave a speech in which he complained

that the court was taking on too many hot-button issues that perhaps should be properly left to congress that the executive branch and the speech did not get a lot of play at the time but people should have paid a little more attention to it because on the one hand is somebody who has litigated before the court if you follow the court you think what are these folks complaining about? they have near perfect control over the cases that they have to take. if they don't want to take these cases they should just leave them alone. arguably there some cases like the winter case the health care case that they feel compelled to take this different circuits have reached different outcomes in the same questions and then they need to solve into resolve the case. the justice kennedy speech and in the think of justice kennedy is the swing vote on the court. on the one hand many of them as tom said in remarks earlier this

morning like to think of themselves as sort of oracle like or to use the chief justice's metaphor during his confirmation hearing the umpire would decide the law and issue it and everyone follows it. inevitably when they take these cases of health care same-sex marriage they will await in on abortion and the health care case is going to be back again in all likelihood. legislate prayer and campaign finance they get into politics and dysfunction of what their role is and the divisions on the court. we have the conservatives on one side and the liberals on the other in the prospect or helps of significant change in one direction or the other on the court. they help to explain some of the decisions like the fisher case that was incremental. we have to the chills the university of texas use of

affirmative action and its undergraduate admissions process and everyone going into the oral argument certainly was concerned that the court was going to strike down the university of texas policy and perhaps get rid of affirmative action altogether after the oral arguments seemed affirmative-action would survive to fight another day and at least in theory it had but the court has made it harder to use affirmative action. the surprise about fisher was not only that it took from the beginning of october until the end of june to get a decision but because this 13 page opinion to which justice breyer and sotomayor signed on. the question and fisher and he talked about the case this morning with the health care case we will probably never know until the justices release their papers and my children will read

them to me in the nursing home because it will take that long. some of these incremental rulings can be attributed to waiting for a swing on the court and perhaps just a sotomayor and justice breyer are willing to impose some limits on affirmative action in return for saving affirmative action altogether. perhaps that is what was going on in 2009 in the first round of the voting rights act in the holder case went 8-1 of the justices the voting rights act to survive for another day. it didn't go that well for the voting rights act this time around so we are going to have a lot of issues that are at the core of what we think of as constitutional law. we will have apportioned legislative prayer campaign finance. we could get in all likelihood

the challenge to the birth control mandate of the affordable care act. different courts of appeals have reached different -- we are most certainly going to get issues of self privacy coming back to the course will be interesting to see whether or not in some of these cases they are at the core of what we think of as constitutional law the roberts court as it continues this more incremental approach in the years to come. a couple of other things that i think are interesting to watch. we saw in the last turn ruth bader ginsburg is not retiring. she has made it very clear that she is sticking around and she is not retiring because she enjoys her job. we saw her in this last term emerged as the new leader of the court's liberal wing taking over from justice stevens who retired. another theme in and this is one

really to tease out and it will depend a lot on the issues and the court in the years to come is to have the chief justice's justice kagan in her early to mid-50's and you can get the sense that perhaps the two of them are playing the long game here that they are thinking about where -- it's like a chess game. where the law is going to be going in the years to come and trying to stir to shape and shift that right now. >> i would just say the single most important change in the supreme court in recent years has been their retirement of sandra day o'connor sandra day o'connor and their replacement by samuel alito. sandra day o'connor who tom described as a moderate conservative replaced by someone you can scratch the word moderate. that change the vote lineup for potential vote lineup in a lot of these cases. amy noted the importance of the

retirement of john paul stevens and ruth bader ginsburg as the leader of the left side of the court. i want to expand on the incrementalism thing because we have seen several examples where the court does -- prefers to take baby steps. we saw in it in the voting rights act when a couple of terms of go the supreme court came up to the edge of striking down the voting voting rights then amy referred to the boat that came out of texas. we think the data that forces states like georgia to have preclearance automatically. you have another chance so the court took the next step. we also saw the gun control case with the supreme court ruled that the second amendment means. that is one of the fascinating things about covering the u.s. supreme court. every term brings narrow or

slice of exact it with the fourth amendment applies to. is it the person sitting behind the driver in the car or the person on the other side of the card? there is always some tiny slice of what the fourth amendment provides that then you get a case like the case involving the gun rights. for the first time in their nation's history the supreme court said what the second amendment is in it was a really big deal. even saw the supreme court said is the second amendment protects your rights to own a gun for self-defense in your home. we have seen a lot of cases where the lower courts where can you have begun under what circumstances concealing carrion the rules for getting it done. does the state a few pass a test that has all sorts of permitting? that is something that will continue. we have a lot it has been

incremental. >> thanks and i also want to mention in your introduction you mentioned a guy was the first person to take you to the supreme court. how long ago was that? 95. anyway a few thoughts about the quarry. this is an extraordinary term. i don't know if we will ever see one like it again although we have sing that tune before. for the court to take on affirmative action same-sex

marriage voting rights all in the same week was really an amazing affirmation of the fact that this court in particular has no hesitation about the big issues of the day. i can imagine other courts in the past letting the issue of same-sex marriage percolate further and of course they didn't end that matter altogether but for them to embrace it now and to really make a dramatic change in how same-sex marriage is viewed legally is just extraordinary. i don't think we are going to see that before.

and then just last week justice ginsburg officiates over the same-sex marriage in washington d.c.. just step back and think about the sweep of it all is extraordinary. on affirmative action yes the court did seem to make a sort of vague compromise stance but the reason why justice breyer joined the majority is that he saw that the majority had declared that grutter in particular was still good law and breyer said that's good enough for me right now. let's just stick with that and we will see how that evolves. i also wanted to mention that i

think this term and the previous term demonstrated that this really is the roberts court finally. he really i think is taking control of the docket and a tremendous influence over the outcomes as well. i have just written a story that is going to be an american lawyer magazine looking at chief justice roberts career as an advocate for the supreme court and seeing what that career tells us about his chief justiceship. there are a couple of things where sort of the incremental approach you are talking about on voting rights in 2000 they stepped up to the brink and almost declared a constitutional

but then said it's congress's turn to do something and of course congress didn't act. but that made it much easier for the court to take the next step is turned and strike it down. the section for the voting rights act and we have seen justice ginsburg say she now regrets not displacing herself from roberts opinion in 2009 because she does see laying the groundwork for this current decision. also in the affordable care that decision the year before one of justice roberts tricks as an advocate before the court was to write every question you can imagine a justice asking. he would write it down on an index card and categorize

hundreds of questions. then he would shuffle the deck of those cards so he could have transitions and segues from one issue to another in the same order that he would have wanted them to be taken up. the affordable care act decision almost looks like the cards were shuffled in the sense that he was able to form one majority on the commerce clause issue and then segue into the taxing power issue with a different majority. it shows the enormous skill counting to five and seeing what positions he can espouse that will get him to victory. a small or incremental step. it's very very effective a

thinking and it will continue to be. the only other thing that is quite dramatic and if you come to the court i will show you around just like i did sonja but the remarkable thing is to look up there and see three women you know left-center and write effectively on the court. it has i think had a tremendous effect on the court as well and kagan and sotomayor are very forceful justices and they are both going to make a difference over time. just as sotomayor is i think still thinks she is on a three-member court which she was on the second circuit because she tries to dominate the arguments with questions that

entropy advocate and intra-beat other justices. more than once chief justice roberts has had to tell the advocate you know answer justice breyer's question first and then answer justice sotomayor's. she has proven herself to be very effect this in teasing out the important issues through the question as aggressive as it isn't just his cake and has been also strategically court and in a number of cases and very effective in her questioning and also she is a great writer. in a case where the issue was whether a drug sniffing dog can be deemed to be reliable in the fourth amendment search? she said the smith is up to

snuff by my rights. not great prose but at least it passes for humor at the supreme court. [laughter] anyway those are a few thoughts and we will talk more about the cases that are coming up. >> can i mention one prediction about the same-sex marriage case a ruling that allows proposition 8 to go into effect. those bottom lines are perceived as very favorable towards same-sex marriage but they didn't resolve the fundamental question whether there is a constitutional right. immediately given what to seem to be a huge green light couples around the country including from very conservative southern states filed a series of challenges to state laws that and same-sex marriage in those cases are coming to the u.s. supreme court on a very fast

freight train because the couples involved want what they perceive as quality of justice but the problem is that they are wrong. it was unimaginable a few years ago that the supreme court were recognized the constitutional rights to same-sex marriage. no appellate court has recognized a constitutional right to same-sex marriage. never ever. when justice scalia in 2003 said an earlier ruling would lead to a recognition of gay marriage people thought it was absurd. parts of the country of move quick and advocates of lgbt quality have developed a sense some of them that the supreme court is there ready to help. the real message of the cala -- california proposition 8 case is the supreme court did not want to get involved and was trying to avoid the ruling on the case.

the court was almost begging and you can read this in the language that justice kennedy's opinion about doma begging to allow this to play out in broader society over time. the justices are conservative ideological and is positionally. they don't like change a lot. they don't know what this will mean for the country. it's a foundational things so the problem is for same-sex marriage advocates is that they are headed straight to the u.s. supreme court. there'll be divisions that the u.s. supreme court will feel like it has to take up the question within the next year and a half and they think it's going to present them an enormous dilemma. the justices are going to be unable to avoid the question. justice kennedy innocence doesn't want to be on the wrong side of history. i think the movement could suffer a massive setback in a ruling that there is no such

right which could slow them down the state legislature for example and in the moral message that gets into the u.s. population so what has been perceived as a great step forward for that immunity in that they have a friend in the supreme court could get turned around in the exact opposite position very quick lead. >> course justice kennedy was in favor of the case but we don't know what he was going to save say because of the standing decision. do you agree with tom's assessment? >> the only part i'm not sure about is whether they will take the case. they don't have to issue will understand. the supreme court with only a few exceptions unlike the supreme court of georgia only takes the cases that it wants to. unlike the defense of marriage act that was the case the supreme court pretty much had to take. i don't mean that literally but

it feels compelled to weigh in when an act of congress has been declared unconstitutional so there were institutional reasons why the court would find it hard to dodge the doma case. it would be no such reason the supreme court would feel duty bound to take these questions and if the court thought it was just too early they could pass and let this cook for a while. that's a only thing i'm not so sure about. steve even very -- other just in thing was perry was not a sure thing for the court to take in the first place that you have to wonder who those four votes were to take the case. i'm trying to picture the point at which the court voted on the case and whether or not they voted on standing first. there was such an unusual lineup of justices on either side of the standing issue that we wonder whether -- nobody was sufficiently sure

what kennedy was going to do with the case to go ahead and go to the merits even though he would have gone to the merits. >> i guess the reasoning is sound and it probably is the case but i still believe in momentum and appearances too. justice scalia in his dissent also said as he predicted in lawrence versus texas that this would lead to gay marriage and in this ruling this past term he said you are providing states with a blueprint making gay marriage constitutional. i guess i'm not certain what the cases are.

i had better start watching the freight train. >> one more question and then i will open it up to the audience. you all touched in earmarks in this concept of shifting the dynamics of the courts and losing the middle ground with justice o'connor and probably soon justice kennedy and i would like to hear if you have any thoughts on how those dynamics are shifting among the justices? are there new leaders emerging? both chief justice roberts and justice kagan there was a lot of talk about this ability to reach across and bring people together. are they shifting in a polarized way? are we losing the middle to have a more polarized court which is hard to imagine that are we going that way? have you noticed anything about dynamix? are there any sort of strange bedfellows connections going on where we see people lining in ways that are pure ideological?

>> as i said chief justice roberts i think does have the skill to bring together unusual coalitions. if they end up feeling like they have been snookered into it that might cause ill feelings down the road but that's an important thing. the kind of alliances we have had in the past scalia and ginsburg in a way and breyer and o'connor were very close. i don't see this happening. we have people like the lido and you have a lot of loners anyway. someone like scalia who seems to have given up completely on trying to build alliances and would rather just lob grenades

from the sidelines. >> i will mention a few justices. i think justice breyer envisions himself as being able to create a new center in the court. he would really like to be able to reach across the aisle. he has some really novel and you take views on the constitution and how to look at different areas of the law that is positionally i think he you really would like to be that guy and if the court were to move one step to the left eye think he would step into the shoes. where's the most common place you will see strange bedfellows? i will be the place where the courts -- you can envision the courts in one of two ways perhaps. one is we have got this is going to be to the court the right in the last, the ideologues and the questions that lineup that way say affirmative action and justice kennedy is conservative but you can also envision the

court as being pragmatic in the middle and idealistic on the wings. that is the far left and right of the court. the middle of the court wants them all to work in their areas of the law where you get five idealists say three liberals into conservatives coming together to make a five justice majority and this will happen in various areas of criminal constitutional law. for example justice scalia has a very strong view of the fourth amendment reticulated the fourth amendment how historical it is in uses and privacy and private property should be protected. also when it comes to the jury trial. justice scalia sometimes justice thomas have come together with the most liberal justices. we can't have all these jury trials. we have to give powers to do judges and the edges of the court will say as a matter of

runcible the sixth amendment will guarantee you a jury trial. that is the place the supreme court is the most likely to see strange bedfellows. in the business sense if you wanted to be long on the justice -- i really want to invest in this justice. right now the conventional wisdom would be justice kagan in chief justice roberts being relatively young and they clearly have a great strategic sense of how to align themselves , how to move the court around. they very rarely dissent. the justice who i would be long on would-be justice sotomayor. the reason for that is if you were to look at her separate writings her concurrences and dissents they are actually very deep and thoughtful and forward-looking. they are for the left with justice thomas is far on the right. he is out there by himself thinking what the law might be

like 50 or 100 years where justice sotomayor is closer to present day with the law might be. she is not really appreciated for her deep legal thinking yet and i think over the next five or 10 years more of those opinions have a chance to become the line she will be recognized as more influential than she is today. any thoughts? >> we would love to open it up to questions. i believe we have microphones and we need people to -- we have to come to the microphone. >> you so i hope i don't phrase this in a way that is too convoluted that if we look back and i guess the last year when you look at hollingsworth, it was the most socially

controversial case the least in the media and the courts seem to just throw that back to the appellate court. if you look at the other controversial cases that warrant is widespread in the media they seem to be taking those smalling gruntal steps to a more conservative position like in the voting rights act. with this upcoming abortion case and the court taking that on it seems to be likely that it will be a strong social case and a very widespread with different opinions so what is your prediction? do you think the court will throw it back to the states like they have been doing what or do you think they will try and make the small steps to restrict the rights? >> a couple of thoughts about that. those of you who don't follow the supreme court cases by name we are talking about the proposition 8 case from california the one that the court tossed back. i want to amplify something that amy said earlier. this term as tony said was

unbeatable in many ways. not only the decisions themselves but it was extremely traumatic that day in december when the court granted those cases. first of all there was a question about okay are they going to take doma? the defensive marriage act for the reasons i noted earlier but on the doma case there was a question about which case they were going to take because there were several doma cases pending in the supreme court and ended up being the dramatic case from new york of amy windsor the woman sues partner died in the irs center a bill saying i'm sorry we can't recognize you as married so you owe this inheritance tax. so that was interesting enough in itself but then i have to say i was shocked when the supreme court decided to take the prop 8 case in california because i for the life of me couldn't figure out why they would do that. apparently neither did they buy

the into the term but you had to say to yourself why are they doing this? certainly the liberals don't want to take this case because they don't want to risk it. the conservatives must have thought they had justice kennedy's boat at that time and remember it only takes four votes in the court to take a case to grant cert and the whole thing was just very dramatic. what they actually did is they didn't just toss it back to the court of appeals. they erased the decision entirely and left only the trial court ruling standing which declared unconstitutional but it was good only for california. i think that's a sign that incrementalism and i'm sure you could say that. the problem with the abortion case is that i guess the mischief depending on which side you were on here is that the court is taking up the question of abortion at all. the last time it did so was in the partial-birth and in that

case justice kennedy who would normally vote in favor of abortion rights found that to far so he voted to uphold the federal ban on partial-birth abortions. any time the supreme court opens that box there is the potential for a ruling that could be significant. it's just at this point what happened here is that courts in the state of oklahoma -- this is it case about the regime to have a medical abortion in the very early stages of pregnancy and with the supreme court has done has said okay we have this case. we are not sure what the law says here so they sent it back to the oklahoma supreme court and said explain what the law means. what really is at stake here so we can get an accurate picture before we decide whether to hear this case. what is really at stake here?

it's a little bit different in that sense. we don't know if they are going to take the case but if they do a in theory could be limited to just the question of limited abortion but b want to go down that road who knows? we have a lot of new justices on the court that had never decided before. >> there's also another louisiana case decided just yesterday. pro-life advocates have reading reading -- been reading strong signals from the federal case that you mentioned to bring cases to the supreme court. my take away from the last decision is that justice kennedy had any significant way changed his mind about roe. he was part of the three justice justice -- group of three justices who who in the famous casey case voted to save roe v. wade what a lot of people thought the rehnquist court would overrule it. i think justice kennedy that take away from his opinion in

the partial-birth abortion case is that he believed that he on some level he got snookered or people overread his willingness to preserve the road right. with justice kennedy so goes the court on abortion. therefore members of the supreme court on the right who would be willing to circumscribe the right although perhaps they would want to be incremental about it so it doesn't seem like they are being too aggressive. each abortion case that gets to the supreme court you should expect right now the supreme court to materially restrict roe and they will do it in a way that doesn't seem entirely overt but it will send a very strong signal to the state legislatures that additional restrictions are unconstitutional.

>> the pivotal fact as pete said earlier is you have justice alito replacing justice o'connor. justice o'connor was a champion of the undue burden test for abortion restrictions and without her on their it seems to be -- the wall of support from row is crumbling. >> this is the case that lends itself particularly well to the incremental approach. without getting too much into the nitty-gritty it's not that the law outlaws medical abortion in oklahoma that tells doctors how they can prescribe reticular pills. the doctors don't like to prescribe it the way that the law would require it to do so they could say it gives the opponents of abortion on the court the opportunity to say we are not getting rid of all of the abortions in oklahoma and not getting rid of surgical abortions where this one

particular option has been eliminated. >> if i understood the question part of the increment to approach keeps the media and the public aware about what is happening and you can work together. do you agree that is one of the reasons why it hasn't got the headline of the court overrules wrote? >> sort of. it's not just the headline. early on with the voting rights act the supreme court was not ready to say he had the voting rights act enough but i teed it up in giving congress a chance it wasn't so reluctant to come around the second time. >> they did say in the opinion congress we did give you the chance and the priest for the challenges to the voting rights act said this time around congress did hold a single hearing in did propose a single bill. sorry we gave you a chance and you blew it. >> anymore questions?

>> this question is for tom and amy and tony as well but do you have any thoughts on how the court would handle what appears to be the case between georgia and florida over the chattahoochee river? >> for those of you in the state this is georgia versus florida water wars. like so many water wars its long-standing. i don't think the justices have any sense of how they would resolve this question. it's in adjusting procedural example of the screen court and a regional action. florida will soothe georgia in the u.s. supreme court. the justices can decide to hear the case and what the supreme court is the power to do is order in equitable apportionment

of the chattahoochee and say georgia will get literally 38% of the flow above and this complicated decree allocating water between the states. florida versus georgia case has an overlay of other environmental litigation between the states and another overlay of the involvement of the u.s. army corps of engineers. but don't have a prediction of what will happen in the case but it's another illustration of how interesting the u.s. supreme court is if they decide same-sex marriage in the voting rights act and then they will have to figure out different segments of the chattahoochee river. how much of the water should be going to florida versus georgia. the other thing i will predict is we won't know for a long time. these water cases go to the u.s. supreme court and they have been there for 30 years. its entire generations of lawyers have put their families through college on the basis of

long-standing cases and i expect there'll be a a bill and supreme court. it will have to be referred in a will take years to figure out unfortunately. >> while we are waiting for the next question i just want to tell you about a case coming out this term that i think is kind of interesting. it's not one that's going to change the course of the mighty rivers but when the experience and i'm sure those of you have felt this as well the experience of reading a case that comes before the supreme court when you read the briefs and remember these are challenging tough cases so you read the person was brought the case challenging the decision. you read there've reads anything wow that's a pretty good argument. they ought to win and then you read the briefs on the other sightings say whoa that's a pretty good argument to map. i don't know how they are going to choose. i'm going to tell you about a case where he think no one should win and that involves

following along in your article of the constitution. .. actually borrowed the play book from the republicans. they go in to pro forma sessions. it's the senator equivalent of real real -- ralgt